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Thursday, June 12, 2014

Hydro Power Dam - A Nature Walk Revealed

This is the hydroelectric power plant we toured. It is on the Skagit River, as you can see. Remember the Diablo Dam and Ross Lake? This is part of all that system that brings electricity to Seattle as Seattle City Lights.

And there was a train! Frank loves trains, he always wanted to be an engineer when he grew up. He is one, just not that kind.

He walked over and rang the bell along with all the other kids!

There were several of these on the grounds. This is the water wheel that turns the turbine that creates the electricity.

In real live, Frank specializes in the repair of the turbines attached to this type of wheel, on a smaller scale.

It really is a beautiful plant. The grounds to the right in the photo are develpped into a beautiful trail with bridges and gorgeous plantings. I was so sad I couldn't walk the trail that leads to the Gorge Dam. We did walk a short way on another trail but we didn't have a clear shot of the dam.

Here I am walking on a suspension bridge to the plant. the bridge you can see there is one we took to get back to the car. I have a great shot of the girders on that unique bridge.

Here is the suspension bridge I was on. they made it to look like electric wire supports! Don't you just love bridges!

Here is a photo of the Gorge Dam we never did see. I pulled it from the internet.

Not much water was flowing through the turbines inside the plant. When we got inside we saw they were doing some overhaul work on it.

That was exciting because we got to see the inside of these huge turbines, well, Frank was really excited anyway. I was slightly more than just interested.

Here are some photos of the trails develpoped along the Gorge plant and heading down to the dam.

Surprisingly it was easier going up for my knee. My mother always said that and it never made sense to me. But it was very painful coming down!

But the beauty of the area was well worth the pain in my knee.

By the mid-point of the walk, I was really hurting. If I were going to back out of the surgery, this vaation serv4d to convince me how badly I needed it.

I missed walking on the trails, heading down to that dam, standing in that cold water trickling down the side of that mountain.

Look at that great log that fell across the creek bed.

Amazing water fall. Just amazing. And a rustic fence........oooohhhhh!

This is as far as I went.

But don't you want to go further up this path?

Turbines! Machinery inside the power plant. There were 4 of these beauties.

This was the construciton of the sluce that brings the water through the system of turbines.

5 comments:

I am loving the pictures! The landscape is so lush! You would love the bridges in Cleveland OH! You can take a boat trip along the Cuyahoga River and see lots of different types of bridges that lift up, swing, and open for the boat traffic. Pittsburgh has lots of cool bridges downtown too!

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